Education reporter

There was more laughter than tears at a memorial service for Dan Magill Thursday — just as he would have wished, according to Pierre Howard, who played tennis for Magill at the University of Georgia in the 1960s.

“Dan would not have wanted us to be somber today. He’d want us to celebrate,” Howard, who went on to become a Georgia lieutenant governor and leader of the Georgia Conservancy, told a crowd of several hundred people gathered Thursday for a memorial service at the Athens Country Club.

Magill, who coached UGA men’s tennis for 34 years, died Saturday at the age of 93.

He played tennis himself up into his 90s, but for the last couple of years had been in declining health.

Magill spent nearly his entire working life at the University of Georgia athletic department. In addition to coaching tennis, he worked as publicity director and secretary of the Bulldog Club, a role in which he kept the athletic department in touch with what would become known as the Bulldog Nation. He was also a sportswriter for newspapers in Atlanta and Athens, and a World War II Marine.

Many of the Bulldog Nation turned out for Thursday’s memorial, along with friends, neighbors and Athens community members.

Football great Charley Trippi signed the guest register; nearby sat Herb White, one of the greatest leapers in NBA history, who played basketball for UGA and the Atlanta Hawks in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Others who showed up included Danny Birchmore, a great UGA tennis player of the 1960s, and his mother, Magill family friend Willa Deane Birchmore. Former UGA football coach Jim Donnan came; so did new UGA librarian Toby Graham and UGA athletic director Greg McGarity, a former ball boy for Magill.

Many former players attended, including George Bezecny, a stalwart of Magill’s 1985 national championship team, who returned from London.

People came Thursday who weren’t so famous in the Bulldog world, like Jo Cochran, a volunteer and official in the NCAA tennis tournaments that were once an annual event in Athens, thanks to the superb tennis facility Magill managed to get built in this football town.

They all told stories about Magill, or stories that they’d heard from the quick-witted, sometimes acid-tongued coach.

“He always found a way to inject humor,” said Howard, one of three speakers at the memorial.

Once, Howard and Magill were at a banquet where a public official was being honored. When the ice cream was served after the main meal, the man fainted.

Magill turned to Howard and said, “I don’t believe he likes the dessert.”

Magill loved to tell stories, not all of which were of absolutely guaranteed veracity, said Howard.

Howard told one of Magill’s stories with a nod toward Clemson University, UGA’s football opponent in this Saturday’s season opener.

In Magill’s story, Clemson was originally called Clem University, named for the hog farmer who founded it. Later, people associated with the university wanted to change its name, so the university’s most learned scholars gathered together to come up with a new one.

At a press conference to announce the new moniker, someone asked how they came up with it, Howard told the country club crowd. They wanted to add letters to symbolize the university’s great traditions, was the reply — chivalry, honor and knowledge.

But it was Georgia Tech that earned Magill’s special ire, according to Howard.

“He always called Tech ‘the enemy,’” Howard said.

When Howard told Magill he’d taken a job with an office in Atlanta’s Biltmore Hotel, near the Tech campus, Magill said, “Oh my God, you’re in purgatory.”

Magill planned to look for Tech people when he reached the Pearly Gates after his death, Howard said.

Magill called the University of Georgia community “the chosen people of the Western world,” recalled longtime Magill associate and friend Loran Smith, who also spoke to the crowd Thursday.

“No man ever gave more of himself to his university,” Smith said.

“I’ll never again hear him tell a story he’d already told me 100 times, but enjoy it just as much as the first time,” Smith added.

Magill’s tennis teams won two national championships and 21 Southeastern Conference indoor and outdoor championships between 1955 and 1988.

“He was a consummate leader. His players won because they loved him and did not want to let him down,” Smith said.

Magill was like a second father to his tennis players, Howard said, ending on a more serious note. “We all felt that way, because we had that relationship with him. I want to thank the Magill family for so generously sharing him with us. That has made a big difference in our lives.”

Magill’s son, Athens cardiologist Ham Magill, had the final word.

“By any measure, I think my dad had a remarkable life. I don’t think he would have changed a thing,” he said.